AUSTRIA: De Gustibus . . .

Last week, delighted Viennese were eating
bananas for the first time since the war.

When they went on sale at a small shop next door to a Russian
headquarters building, the Communist daily, Volks-stimme, huffed:
"Bananas, yet! Apparently there are no more important foodstuffs we can
import against our industrial goods. Bananas, yet!"

Next day, the obliging Socialist Arbeiter Zeitung, which seems to do a
lot of Volksstimme's legwork,* revealed that the bananas came to
Austria as part of a barter deal between Russian occupation forces and
the Italians. Viennese really owed their thanks to a Soviet inspection
officer who, it...